When the original three Ghostbusters separate at the Sedgewick hotel, and Venkman is wandering a hallway, there's a snippet of noise audible from a TV inside one of the rooms.

It's a rich male voice saying what sounds like, "But, you may be right. If so, we'd better [unintelligible] ..."

And I swear, it sounds like Ricardo Montalban.

Anyone know more about this?

It could be an episode of Fantasy Island, it could be TOS, it could be Wrath of Khan. It could be anything, really, from throughout his long and distinguished career, at least pre-1983-ish.

But this has nagged at me long enough. In 2012, I want to FIND that clip and hear/see the entire bit of dialogue. Yet I can't do it alone, so I appeal on the obsessive GBfan gene in all of us... Help me find this!

This is one of the bigger mysteries of Ghostbusters. No one has been able to ID it thus far and the sound guys aren't well interviewed, though it's hoped that the Cleanin' Up The Town documentary might get an answer.

The other thread lead me to this! I'm 100% certain the first word is Barnes or Barns, but I can't find a single Montalban thing on IMDB with a character named either in it. Which doesn't help, but I'm going to obsess over it too, now, and you know what they say about a problem shared!

Aw, I got my hopes up for a second there. I googled "Ricardo Montalban Dallas episode" and got a hit. Unfortunately, it was an article giving a synopsis of a Dallas show and the author made a throwaway mention to Montalban in an aside.

I checked his imdb page and didn't see a listing for Dallas.

He did appear on Dynasty, so nighttime soap appearances weren't outside his milieu, but that was two years after Ghostbusters, so it can't be the source of this audio.

If it even is RM speaking, which it might not be.

I'm playing a long shot on this topic at the moment so cross your fingers.

And here's another new avenue to investigate... 1954's The Saracen Blade, with Montalban. It's the main entry I see popping up under movies he made for Columbia Pictures. Thirty years old when they were making Ghostbusters, and they wouldn't have had to worry about clearances as much.

Well yeah, I'm not totally sold it was Montalban and thought it could have been someone in the main Dallas cast.

And here's another new avenue to investigate... 1954's The Saracen Blade, with Montalban. It's the main entry I see popping up under movies he made for Columbia Pictures. Thirty years old when they were making Ghostbusters, and they wouldn't have had to worry about clearances as much.

Perhaps, the "barnes" part we're hearing is in mention of the character Baron Rogliano? But during 1983-84, would it have easy for the sound crew to get a copy of a 50s movie or its audio?

After all, Ben Burtt was putting sounds from older films into Star Wars in the mid-to-late 70s. The squeaking voice of 'Garindan' the long-nosed spy in Mos Eisley was created using a line of dialogue from a John Wayne movie.

Plus, since it was supposed to be a voice on a TV, it could have been as simple as turning on a TV, hitting record on an old Nagra tape recorder (that's what Burtt used) and bagging the 'world-ized' audio of whatever movie happened to be playing.

That's a good point. The Sedgewick scenes were shot in LA at the Biltmore and Burbank Studios so the sound crew could have easily looked up a movie or show at Columbia and recorded it during that production or post.

For what it's worth, this source audio is also something that's been nagging Chris for years - and when we had Ivan Reitman on the podcast, he had to ask him. Reitman was stumped and couldn't recollect if it was something that he had purposefully put in there as a nod or not.

For what it's worth, this source audio is also something that's been nagging Chris for years - and when we had Ivan Reitman on the podcast, he had to ask him. Reitman was stumped and couldn't recollect if it was something that he had purposefully put in there as a nod or not.

Hmm, so it sounds like it's one of those things he delegated to his sound person on the shoot. Maybe Reitman didn't even approve it and just gave the person carte blanche to pick whatever.

The other thread lead me to this! I'm 100% certain the first word is Barnes or Barns, but I can't find a single Montalban thing on IMDB with a character named either in it. Which doesn't help, but I'm going to obsess over it too, now, and you know what they say about a problem shared!

"Ok. opening at number 2, to sub 50 million, next to the 2nd weekend of an animated kids movie, is NEGATIVE. Let me just clear that up right now. There is no middle ground on this. Studios DO NOT spend 100 million in marketing money to open at number 2. No sir. No. No. No. No." - Richardless